Outsiders 2045
by Davies
Summary: The formation of a new team of Outsiders, in the same world as Shanejayell's Project A-Ko: DC Universe 2045
1. Book 1, Chapter 1

Chapter One  
  
In the red light of evening, from a high enough vantage point, Tokyo resembled nothing so much as a series of techno-shaped islands arising out of a sea of blood. The blood, of course, was smog. There was probably an analogy there, but he wasn't looking for it at the moment. He wasn't looking for anything at the moment, having entered the state that more technically-adept masters called "camera-mind" -- allowing what entered his eyes to fill his mind without consciously considering any of it. What he saw *was*, and no thought on his part would make it other than that. This was the beginning of wisdom, and also the way he preferred to begin his day.  
  
A voice intruded. "It will be today."  
  
He didn't look over his shoulder; there was only one person that would say anything along those lines. He allowed thought to flow gradually back into his consciousness before he slowly began to stand up. That he was more certain of his footing than any tight-rope walker was no reason to tempt both fate and the wind to knock him off the balcony without walls, and send him falling eighty stories to the ground below.  
  
When he'd begun using this place as a residence, he'd wondered why the architects had installed such odd additions to the complex's otherwise unremarkable suites. On learning that the building had been built more than a quarter of a century earlier, at the tail end of the metahuman era, he'd felt fairly certain he knew the answer. In an age when anything could happen, it might be appropriate to have a balcony easily accessible to men and women who could fly on their own power. It would only be polite, after all.  
  
Lorraine stood at the balcony door in her white nightgown and chemise, her equally white hair flowing free and arms crossed under her small breasts. More than one magazine had called her beautiful. It was a lie, of course. Her cocoa-colored skin was without flaw, and her only slightly darker eyes were clear and bright, but the very fact of her flawlessness prevented her from being beautiful. Instead, what she had and what the magazines saluted was her glamor. And, of course, her power.  
  
He didn't ask whether she was certain of her statement, or make any gestures of inquiry such as a raised eyebrow. She would not have stated it as a fact if there was any question in her mind. Instead, he asked, "Where?"  
  
"Opal City. Downtown. This afternoon," she replied. "I have already booked your flight."  
  
"Thank you." He turned to look at the screen on the suite's wall. "Let's see what else is happening in the world today."  
  
The magic words were heeded by the spirits hidden in the realm of the electrons, who closed the circuit to activate the screen. It displayed the image of GBS-Tokyo's anchorman, who had never actually existed, as the icon was a synthesis of a popular early-21st century newsman and a template of Japanese facial features. Around "him" were cameos of the stories of importance.  
  
"Critical news this morning comes from Metropolis," the anchorman announced. "The reorganization commences of the Justice League, with leadership by a new Supergirl --" That was in English, of course. "-- showing here."  
  
One of the cameos flashed. "Magnify," he said on impulse, a frown beginning to grow on his face. The cameo obliged, filling the whole screen as the anchorman continued his description of the events in Metropolis.  
  
His jaw fell as he recognized her from her vibrant, red hair. They'd only met the one time, but he would have recognized that hair anywhere, along with her smile. That inane, girlish smile.  
  
"Eiko Magami?" he asked the universe. "They gave *her* the job? *Her*?"  
  
"Given who they are," Lorraine noted with obvious amusement, "should you not perhaps give their judgment more credit?"  
  
"Given what they've done, I can give it none at all. God look down damnation, this raises the concept of nepotism to new heights."  
  
"Naturally. They are larger than life, so why shouldn't their nepotism be likewise?" She abruptly became serious. "Does it change anything?"  
  
He sighed heavily. After a moment, he answered. "No. We will simply need to be very careful. Hopefully, we will be able to work our own side of the street while her League ... ideally, works a different part of town entirely."   
  
Making a change of tone of his own, he turned to look her square on. "Is he ready?"  
  
She nodded.  
  
"He is not drugged or one bred to docility?" This was vital, and he doubted she could understand how much.  
  
"It was scheduled to fight in Pamplona next week," Lorraine answered. "I highly doubt the latter, and I have followed your instructions carefully."  
  
"Thank you," he said again. "If you'll excuse me, then?"  
  
He walked into the suite's bathroom, and pulled off the black trousers that were his only garment as he shut the door. He stepped naked into the shower/bath, and turned the water on to its highest for the purification.  
  
Over the water's soft roar, he could hear the sound of the bull moving in the bathroom above him. Lorraine kept that suite, as well, and had employed men who asked no questions to make modifications to both these lavatories. The ones in this one seemed comparatively minor -- only a single additional knob above the one that controlled the water.  
  
He rested his hand on that knob now. "Bullfighting," he said, disgust plain in his tone. "Killing you for sport, my friend. You escaped that indignity, at least."  
  
Then, without hesitation, he pulled the knob back. There was a noise that seemed to blend a thump and the sound of meat being sliced open, and a single startled bleat. In the same instant, the water in the shower turned off.  
  
A moment later, the blood began to flow out of the shower's faucet.  
  
As it ran down onto his face and body, he bent his head low, and began to pray. The words were in Latin, though he could easily have spoken them in Greek or Armenian.  
  
"Hercules, defender of men.  
  
"Who conquered the terrors of the ancient world.  
  
"Who first walked the path by which men may become as gods.  
  
"Guide thou me in my steps with thy hard-won wisdom.  
  
"Guide thou me in my steps as I perform my feats.  
  
"Strengthen thou me in my sinews as I bear my burdens, as thou did bear all the world.  
  
"Strengthen thou me in my sinews as I wrestle my foes, as thou did wrestle Thanatos.  
  
"For all do wrestle Thanatos in every moment of life.  
  
"In the name of thy father, who is God, and thy mother, who is Alcmene, and thy very self.  
  
"Amen."  
  
He stood in silence for several moments longer, as the last of the blood flowed down on him. When it had ceased to flow entirely, even the last drop, he continued to stand for the requisite five minutes before raising his head to push the lever back, so that the water flow began anew.  
  
When the baptismal blood had all been washed away down the drain, he ran a hand through his curly black hair, and stepped out of the shower to dry himself off. He tied the towel around himself, toga-style, before he walked back into the suite's living room.  
  
Lorraine was seated on the couch, watching as the screen displayed stock prices. She'd tap on plus or minus signatures beside the names of companies she'd decided to buy or sell, respectively, when they came up.  
  
Before he could even open his mouth, she spoke without turning around to look at him. "I'll make sure that the meat is properly cut and treated, and delivered to several soup kitchens around the city. The ones that won't sell it on the black market."  
  
"Thank you," Richard Wayne said, as sincerely as the previous two times he'd thanked his closest ally in the world, and went to dress himself.  
  
To Be Continued. 


	2. Book 1, Chapter 2 & 3

I:  
  
At 40,000 feet, everyone is deaf. The only sound that penetrates is the constant roar of the wind, which is felt more than heard. And it drowns out all lesser noises, such as conversation or the sound of a phone ringing. There are solutions to these technical problems, of course. For the former, you can talk by a media other than sound. Any of the many sorts of telepathy will suffice. Alternatively, you can exercise other powers, such as "super-ventriloquism" or use the same increased lung capacity that allows breathing at such heights to raise the decibels of your voice so that it drowns out the wind.  
  
Will Freeman preferred a technological solution, which was one of the many contradictions of his life. He set his phone to vibrate, and had invested in specialized gear that turned incoming signals into text that scrolled across the bottom of his goggles, and a tongue switch that let him pick out the words that a voice synthesizer would transmit as a reply.  
  
One of the other contradictions of his life was that, despite his love of the stage, he cherished his days off. The new revival of "It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's Superman", in which he was the first understudy for the title role, was on hiatus pending the resolution of a contract dispute involving the actors who played Elaine Louis and Arthur Lexington. So rather than sit back and watch the battle of egos, he went flying.  
  
And heard God's laughter in his ears.  
  
It was getting on for noon when he felt the vibration of the receiver against his left shoulder. With the wink of his right eye, Will signaled for pick-up.  
  
_Will, it's Rick. How's it goingquestion._  
  
He grinned. _Greatexclamation._  
  
A pause, and then the text scroll resumed. _If I'm not mistaken, that's a synthesized version of your voice. So you finally went and got the gearquestion._  
  
_Yeahexclamation. It works like a dream, just like you said it would. Best idea you've ever had._  
  
_laughter. Well, I can't take the credit. The other you came up with the idea, and I just repeated it in your ear. I think you got it a bit earlier than he did, though._  
  
_Wild. So what's upquestion_  
  
_I'm heading into Opal as we speak. Something is apparently going to happen here. I don't know what, exactly, but I think I'm going to need backup. Are you openquestion._  
  
_Absolutely, man. I'm heading that way already. Just send the signal, and I'll head for your position like a thunderbolt._  
  
_laugh. Appropriate. Thank you._ A beat, and then. _I'm looking forward to seeing you again._  
  
_Of course you areexclamation. See you then._   
  
Will signed off, shaking his head just slightly at the hesitation Rick had shown before that last admission. What was the point of having friends if you couldn't let yourself be happy to see them?  
  
Ah well. He'd learn. Will turned slightly to the northwest, and decided to play with one of the cloud banks in his path to Opal City.   
  
He wanted to dance with the lightning.   
  
II:  
  
Bridwell's, Opal City's most successful department store, had opened early in the twenty-first century and had been expected to fail within months. Large, single-story buildings had been the fashion in American department store architecture for nearly half a century, and everything about Bridwell's had been designed against that fashion. It occupied all ten floors (and basement and sub-basement) of a roughly triangular building near Opal's center, and placed each of its departments on one of the floors. Lady's Wear was on second, Men's Wear was on third, and so on and so forth. It had a greater selection of items in each department than any of its competitors, but the inconvenience of travel between floors had been the expected killer.  
  
What the pundits had never anticipated was that Bridwell's owners would have developed a unique solution to the problem, and constructed an even dozen "bounce tubes" against the rear of the store, using technology devised by one of the store's major investors, Theodore Kord, better known as the Blue Beetle. One stepped into the tube, and then rose or descended on a force field. The spacious tubes allowed quick and easy access to each of Bridwell's floors, and several fail safes existed for safety purposes.  
  
What the pundits could have anticipated was the swelling of a sort of nostalgia for department stores of this sort, which had once been very common in the urban American landscape. It had been predicted in a song written in the 1980s about love (or at least, sex) in an elevator, and in the first decade of the twenty-first century it was in full force. The combination of nostalgia and novelty had made the first Bridwell's a roaring success, and the investors had all made (or remade) their piles from it and subsequent branches in other cities.  
  
In the meantime, the original Bridwell's had also garnered a great deal of public goodwill for its support for various charities, and for its agreement with the Opal City Department of Corrections that gave recently paroled convicts employment in its stockroom - under close supervision, of course. The management could truly boast that it had never once had one of the parolees in the program engage in recidivism while employed there. What generally was not mentioned in the boast was the fact that any "associate" caught violating any store policy was immediately treated as being in violation of the terms of his or her parole, and went back to jail.  
  
All this was probably known to the young, bald woman who was currently having those policies explained to her as part of her "interview". She simply didn't give a rat's ass.  
  
"In short," the personnel director said as he wound up his speech, "if you just do as you're told, and give the job one hundred percent, you'll end up with a host of references and an excellent line on your resume when you complete the terms of your parole. That's an excellent deal, isn't it?"  
  
Diana nodded her head, as that was the response the drone was clearly expecting.  
  
"Now." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk. "There is a question that I'm not supposed to ask you. It is in fact a violation of your rights for me to ask you the question. You are perfectly within your rights not to answer. However, I must warn you that failure to satisfactorily answer any question asked by any of your supervisors, of which I'm one, is a violation of store policies. So. What was the crime for which you were convicted?"  
  
Gosh, that was easy. "Second degree murder."  
  
The director had probably been expecting something like fraud or theft or, at the extreme, assault. So his mouth hung open while the response he'd had prepared, something along the lines of "there'll be no more of that", went out the window.  
  
"I was genuinely remorseful," she added, sounding much less sincere than she'd sounded at the parole hearing. "And I apologized and was forgiven by the victim's family." That had been easy, since her mother and older brother hadn't bothered to show up at the hearing, and she'd had no problem forgiving herself for what she did to grandpa. None.  
  
She was sorry she hadn't killed him sooner, though.  
  
"I see," the director said, clearly not having seen. "Well. Um. There is one additional point that I'd like to go over. While Bridwell's is a tolerant company, we do have a code of appearance, and I'm afraid that your ... well, hairstyle isn't acceptable. We realize that it was probably a requirement in prison, and that it's probably going to take a while to let it grow out."  
  
It had been a requirement, but she'd decided that she liked it enough to never let it grow ever again.  
  
"In any event, we would be happy to offer you one of our selection of wigs." He paused. "The cost will be deducted from your paycheck, of course."  
  
That wasn't much of a concern. She'd never see a penny of it since it all went to her rent at the half-way house. "Yes, that would be very nice. Thank you."  
  
The director smiled thinly, and pushed a button. His secretary stepped in with a pair of wigs: one red-haired, one platinum-blonde. "If I'm not mistaken, Miss Stagg, the platinum is a close match to your natural hair color --"  
  
"I'd prefer the red, please."  
  
"Well, you should be aware that one's more expensive --"  
  
"I'd prefer the red. Please."   
  
It was her tone, more than anything else, that made him pause. "Ah. Yes."  
  
"Thank you," she said as she put it on her head, and adjusted it carefully. "And, sir ... I generally use my father's surname, rather than one on my birth certificate. I'd much prefer to be called Miss Mason. I intend to change it legally, as soon as possible."  
  
He took a deep breath. "Well. That can certainly be arranged. I'll just make the correction to our files.  
  
"Thank you very much, sir," she said, as she leaned forward and rested her hand on the plastic covering over the calendar on his desk, turning its top edge into a clear glue-like substance. "I really look forward to being a part of the Bridwell's family."  
  
Author's Note:  
  
For those keeping track at home: Will Freeman is the son of Freddy Freeman (aka Captain Marvel Junior or CM3) and Mary Batson (aka Captain Mary Marvel), while Diana Mason, as I think we should all call her, is the daughter of Rex Mason (aka Metamorpho) and Sapphire Stagg.  
  
There really was a musical entitled "It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's Superman" here on Earth-Prime. On Earth-Sigma, of course, the plot is a bit different, and some of the names have been changed to avoid legal entanglements. (Elaine Louise = Lois Lane, Arthur Lexington = Lex Luthor.)  
  
And Bridwell's is named after legendary DC editor E. Nelson Bridwell. 


	3. Book 1, Chapter 4 & 5

I:  
  
Rumiko stood and watched the water as it surged up from the nozzle, hidden underneath the seemingly tranquil pool. None of the other people gathered in the small park seemed to give it much notice. But then, there was a large sign at the gateway to the park that informed all who entered of the artificial geyser ("Erupts every hour on the half-hour!") within. And perhaps many of those here were residents of the city, and so were inured to its marvels.  
  
She was not, however, and hoped that she would never be. Rumiko had seen geysers before, from Tatsumaki Jigoku in her native Japan to the American Old Faithful, which she'd visited while traveling eastward from New Coast City. But only in America, she thought, would people think to create an artificial version of a natural phenomenon ... and then become so accustomed to its presence as to ignore it.  
  
She liked it here.  
  
As she stood watching, she became aware that, behind her and to her right, a young man who had not been impressed by the geyser was certainly impressed by her - or at least her appearance. Rolling her green eyes, the legacy of an American grandfather, she turned to meet his gaze evenly, with a polite smile.  
  
He blanched at the sight of the still-red scar that reached from the bottom of her left eye down to her jawbone, and turned back to converse with his friends.  
  
Rumiko shook her head, more amused than angry. She had treasured her beauty, before the injury, but afterwards she had still been able to look in the mirror and believe herself attractive. And after all, her blue-black hair - truly blue, the legacy of a mutagenic hair dye used by her mother - still attracted gazes. It was to the gazers' misfortune that they could not see past the scar. Character, after all, was more enduring than appearance.  
  
She gave a last glimpse at the geyser, and idly wondered as to how she would go about acquiring permission to meditate above it. She had once meditated beneath the flow of an icy waterfall, but reached the conclusion that enlightenment could not be found through freezing oneself to death. Nor could it probably be reached by boiling oneself, either, so she walked away from the geyser and out of the park completely.  
  
Surveying the early afternoon streets and sidewalks of Opal City, Rumiko finally settled on Bridwell's as her next destination. Her sandals were beginning to get a bit ratty, and it might be a good idea to obtain a new pair. With that in mind, she strolled towards the internationally-known shopping centre, and walked in the door.  
  
The scanners were so well-incorporated into the architecture that she almost didn't notice them, but she was not surprised when an officious gentleman with a bulge under his left shoulder and a microphone in that ear approached her casually. "Excuse me, Miz, but could I have a word with you?  
  
"Are you with store security?" she asked in even, unflustered American.  
  
"Yes, Miz. Our scanners detected --"  
  
"Just a moment, please." She slowly reached into her pocket, and drew out her wallet. Flipping it open, she displayed the card identifying her self as Nagai Rumiko, a Licensed and Bonded Antiquities Dealer, with permission to carry (but not use) the daisho detected in the bag she carried over her shoulder. "Would you care to see my papers?"  
  
The agent examined her card, pursed his lips, and finally said, "No, I don't think that will be necessary. But we will insist on locking the bag during your visit here."  
  
She assented to this insistence, and watched as the agent applied a bonding agent to the zipper fastener on the bag while assuring her that it could be removed at any time she decided to leave the store. She thanked him for the assurance, and didn't bother to mention the bag's false bottom that would allow her access to her weapons within a second.  
  
One quick examination of the store's directory later, she stepped into a bounce tube marked with an upwards-pointing arrow. The hair on her spine stood up as she ascended through the tube to the eighth floor (Men's and Women's Shoes, Jewelry) while looking down through the empty shaft. As soon as she reached her destination, she raised a foot. "Sensing" the shift in weight, the force field under her feet froze as she stepped out of the tube.  
  
That had been quite an adventure. She smiled at the thought -- then frowned suddenly.  
  
Something was horribly wrong.  
  
II:  
  
Tara Markov, if that's who she really was, looked casually around as she browsed through the jewelry department. She was relatively certain that she'd made at least three of the surveillance cameras, and the best set-up she'd ever heard about only used five on any given area. Not that she wanted to shoplift.  
  
At least, she didn't want to want to shoplift.  
  
That was how a lot of her thought processes went. She'd woken up a few years ago in a small cave just outside Los Angeles, near an open clone chamber, identified by the conveniently placed clone chamber manual. The last thing she remembered clearly was talking with Prince Brian Markov, the older half-brother of her presumed gamete donor, and hoping that they weren't related. He'd produced a file that had refuted the possibility, and she had been enormously relieved, as the original Tara Markov had been an out-and-out psychopath.  
  
Unfortunately, beside the clone chamber manual had been what appeared to be a copy of that report, which showed that Brian had been lyin'. She was genetically identical to Tara Markov.  
  
Of course, that raised more questions than it answered. Was *she* a clone of that Tara, who had (according to some research she'd done) disappeared about thirty-five years before? Had that Tara been a clone, or the original Tara somehow restored to life? (That happened, from time to time, and most organized religions were still adjusting to the fact.) Had the clone chamber been a suspended animation pod, so that she was that Tara, or just a clone with implanted memories? (Since that Tara had been born in a defunct future timeline and had false memories implanted about her childhood there, that was a distinct possibility.)  
  
It was very confusing. She wanted very much to meet the idiot who'd decided that having super-powers should involve the possibility that one's personal history might become the subject of a multiple-choice exam. She had several crushing remarks planned. Literally crushing.  
  
But she didn't want to want that, either. Wanting things like that was a good sign that she might be turning into a psychopath. Or possibly turning back into one.  
  
Letting her reverie pass for a moment, she looked at a trio of women - two standing, one seated and trying on a pair of rather fancy looking red shoes with ribbons on the sides. All three finally broke into laughter at the idea of wearing them, and Tara smiled despite herself.  
  
Then, something odd seemed to happen. Two of the women looked up at the third, as though they'd never seen her before. That woman, gold-haired and dressed in an odd outfit with bells on her sleeves, kept right on laughing ... and did so in a very high-pitched cackle. Tara started to frown, as other people on the floor turned to stare at them.  
  
"I'm sorry," that woman said when she finally slowed down to the occasional chuckle. "I just couldn't help hearing and finding what you said to be very funny. Very, very funny. Having a good time, I hope? Considering?"  
  
"Considering what?" asked the seated woman.  
  
"Considering that you're all going to die, of course!" she squealed as she pulled a pair of knives from each of her sleeves, and drove one into the seated woman's eyes and the other into her standing companion's chest.  
  
The ground seemed to tilt under Tara's feet as she watched the sight. Oddly, her first feeling was one of relief. She'd never had the slightest impulse to do anything like that, so maybe she was further from psychopathy than she'd thought.  
  
But then there was no more time to think as the madwoman jerked her knives out of the two bodies before her, and turned to smilingly look right at Tara. With as little warning as before, she flung one - attached by a chain to the sleeve of her shirt, Tara noticed - directly at the young blonde's stomach. 


	4. Book 1, Chapter 6, 7, 8 & 9

I:  
  
Tara quickly sidestepped the chained knife - there was probably a more precise name for the thing, but she didn't know it - and it streaked past her. She suspected that the crazy, golden-haired woman was just throwing her blades at anyone in sight. Fortunately, that meant that the thrower didn't know how much combat training Tara had. (Or possibly, some previous incarnation of Tara had, and she was benefiting from.)  
  
In any event, as the knife thunked into its target - a wall - Tara reached up from her crouched position and grabbed the chain, hoping to pull its handle out of the woman's hand. That would leave her at least fifty percent disarmed, and make the next part of this a hell of a lot easier.  
  
Sadly, Tara's luck seemed to have momentarily run out. Yanking the chain proved ineffective - it was like trying to pull a ship's sea-anchor up with her bare hands. God, that meant the woman was seriously strong.  
  
"Say, aren't you dead?"  
  
Amazingly, the lunatic was talking to her - and, she noted, looking at her in a way that she might almost call confused.  
  
"Not yet," Tara snapped, letting go of the chain. Worked metal, like this, was more-or-less impervious to her powers. She needed to find another strategy, fast.  
  
"No, I don't mean now, I mean before now. Something about an exploding underwater base or some such bloody nonsense." Damned if the woman didn't sound quizzical.  
  
"It's a long story." Concrete in the floors? No, they'd make her pay for the repairs, and she'd almost exhausted the funds on the bank card she'd found after waking up.  
  
"Oh. Well, then, screw it." Without another word, the lunatic jerked back the knife in the wall behind Tara, almost cutting her side as it recoiled, and sent the other one right at her. She narrowly dodged that one by vaulting over one of the racks of shoes to her side.  
  
Still trying to think of a strategy, she noted quickly that most of the other customers on this floor had retreated towards the bounce tubes going down. In fact, there was a huge pileup in front of -  
  
Oh shit.  
  
"You know what? Those things aren't nearly as safe as they make them out to be," the madwoman called out, still apparently standing where she'd been earlier. "Even with all the fail safes, there's a one in a million chance that none of them will work.  
  
"And you know what they say about million to one chances."  
  
That was when the screaming really started.  
  
II:  
  
The alarms started to go off less than an hour into Diane's first shift, and she found herself just a bit confused when everyone just looked around, seeming as confused as her. They had to have been through a fire drill before now, surely.  
  
"All employees and associates, please evacuate the building. This is a Class 5 emergency, not a drill. Repeat, all employees and associates..."  
  
Class 5 emergencies hadn't been covered in the brief safety seminar she'd been given earlier that day. But whatever they were, clearly the other employees were taking them seriously enough to be quickly exiting the basement stockroom and heading for the hallway containing the bounce tubes. She chose to tag along.  
  
Unfortunately, there were a lot more employees than bounce tubes to carry them up. Each tube could only handle about nine or ten people, tightly packed, and so there was something of a choke point in the evacuation proceedings. Diane found herself near the back of the bus, outside the doorway to the last "down" tube.  
  
That was how she happened to see the people falling through it.  
  
Diane watched in a sort of distant horror as they dropped past her, some screaming, some apparently too shocked to do that. It wasn't until she saw the plummeting baby carriage and heard the wails as it dropped out of sight that she finally found her own voice. "There are people --"  
  
Whatever else she might have said was drowned out by the cries and shrieks of other employees as they also discovered what was going on beside them. A tiny part of Diane's mind murmured that this was a wonderful bonding experience for her new family.  
  
"The tubes have been compromised!" called a voice of authority from up ahead. "Proceed to the stairway." The mass of people began to move forward while Diane spared a moment to admire the speaker's euphemism. It was the best one she'd heard all day.  
  
She was beginning to suspect that she might actually get through this all right when, just as she passed the last "up" tube, someone shoved her on her right side. Off balance, she stumbled into the tube and the force field slammed into her like her first cellmate's fist.   
  
She was heading up much faster than the normal safety settings would permit. The doors to the first three floors passed by in a flash. Abruptly, Diane realized that she was going to be reduced to a pancake on the roof unless she did something.  
  
Bracing herself against the invisible wall underneath her, she threw herself forward. Her toes brushed against the top of the door-frame, and she somersaulted to a halt on the floor in front of the tubes. Eighth floor, she blurrily realized from the shoes all around her.  
  
But who the hell was that?  
  
III:  
  
Rick slid the hovercycle in and out of traffic on the crowded expressway into Opal City. It would probably have been faster to just run - he could easily break the fifteen-second mile - but to do so would have attracted more attention than he wanted right now.  
  
The speaker inside his helmet buzzed. "It's starting," said Lorraine's voice. "There are clear reports of metavillainous activity in downtown Opal City. Bridwell's, if I understand the intercepts right."  
  
He didn't doubt that she understood them perfectly. "Anybody we know?"  
  
There was a full moment's worth of hesitation before she answered. "The Harlequin."  
  
His jaw tightened. "It would be."  
  
Snapping down the helmet's visor, Knight gunned the cycle's engine until it shot up over the other vehicles, then roared towards the battlefield.  
  
IV:  
  
In the first instant after Rumiko had realized that the golden-haired woman standing near the center of this floor was responsible for the danger she'd sensed, she had dived for cover.  
  
This was not simply a case of discretion being the greater part of valor, though that did play a part. But she had to open up the false bottom of the bag, remove the two blades from it, and also pull out the mask. And even more than that, she had to study her opponent.  
  
The mask fit around her face perfectly - which was strange, given that it had been designed for another woman, nearly half a century ago. But perhaps her distant kinship with Yamashiro Tatsu was closer than either of their families believed.  
  
She was tightening the ties around the back of her head when the screams began in earnest. She looked back towards the bounce tubes just in time to see the mass of panicked civilians push a woman pushing a baby carriage into the shaft - and then see her and it plummet out of sight.  
  
Enough.  
  
She drew the katana and its matching wakizashi from their hilts, then rose and cried aloud, "Yurusenai!"  
  
The madwoman, who'd been giggling, looked a bit startled at her appearance, and asked aloud, "I'll what?"  
  
Praying that the distraction would last long enough, Rumiko dashed towards her foe and struck low and high simultaneously.  
  
To her shock, the woman blocked both blades with her arms. The fabric alone couldn't possibly be that strong, could it?  
  
"Wow, a swordfight! And me without my bright yellow suit. Oh well." And with that, the woman pushed Rumiko back, and began to slice at her with a new pair of knives. Rumiko parried, but found that any sort of riposte would be impossible. Her foe was too strong and too fast.  
  
Unless some other distraction came soon -  
  
Even as she thought that, a red-haired woman was vomited up out of one of the bounce tubes. She looked up with a disoriented expression, and the madwoman seemed to start at the sight of her.  
  
"You," she said in a breathy sort of voice. "I remember you. I remember you lots!"  
  
An opening! Rumiko drove the edge of her smaller sword towards her foe's stomach.  
  
But the opening, if it had ever existed, had passed, and the madwoman's feet were already above where her stomach would have been. She went so far as to use Rumiko's head as a post to vault over her, and rolled until she was right in front of the new arrival.  
  
From the baggy right sleeve of her shirt, she produced a broad-bladed knife, and drove it forward into her newest victim's skull.  
  
Author's Notes:  
  
For the Japanese illiterate: "Yurusenai" means, roughly: "I will not forgive you" - only the feeling is a lot stronger than that. Perhaps the phrase "you are unforgivable" comes closer. 


	5. Book 1, Chapter 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, ...

I:  
  
Huh, thought Diane. So this is what it feels like to have a knife stuck in my head.  
  
It hurt, of course. But her sense of pain didn't actually mean that anything was damaged. It was like the appendix in people who weren't freaks; vestigial, and more trouble than it was worth. Her brain consisted of nerve tissue gathered in nodes floating throughout the fluid inside her body, and the knife hadn't come close to any of them. So while the pain paralyzed her for a few moments, she knew that it would pass.  
  
Looking up at the weirdo who'd stabbed her, Diane guessed that she'd started to realize something was wrong when the knife had gone in so easily. No matter how strong she was, there would have been some resistance as the knife ran into her skull. (Of course, Diane didn't have a skull, or any sort of skeleton, either. Exactly how she was able to stand and move like a human being had been just one of the oddities that brought joy to the petrified hearts of the metaphysiologists who'd studied her the first six years of her life.) There hadn't been any, and the lunatic was frowning as that realization came to her.  
  
The pain having reached manageable levels, she decided to freak her attempted murderer out. "I'm sorry, but I don't think we've been introduced," she said through gritted teeth.  
  
She tensed her right leg, making it take on the consistency of solid metal, and kicked upward. With a yelp, the woman shot up and rolled in mid-air to land on her feet a few feet back.  
  
Diane sat up, and pulled the thick blade out of her forehead. Her flesh (or whatever it was) instantly rolled back over the gaping wound. "I'm Diane Mason. Who the fuck are you?"  
  
"You couldn't do that before," the lunatic replied non-sequitively. "It's not fair."  
  
"Fair? Did you say fair?" Diane had known some messed up people in the joint, but this took the cake.  
  
"Hey, bitch!" Another voice yelled from the side. Reflexively, Diane turned to look in that direction even as the other bitch did so as well.  
  
II:  
  
As he roared past city limits, Knight gradually opened up the throttle on the bike until the dial was well into the red.  
  
"Hasten, hasten, best of steeds," he murmured through clenched teeth.   
  
III:  
  
Wow. Now that was impressive. Impact- and puncture-resistant metas were nothing new, but she'd never seen anyone just take that kind of blow and be completely unaffected. If not for that, Tara might have been reluctant to try her next stunt, but this Diane person should be safe from the effects of friendly fire.  
  
"Hey, bitch!" she yelled as she stood up. "You wanna know what's really not fair?"  
  
"What's really not fair?" the crazy woman replied in the same intonation.  
  
Well, she'd been hoping for a straighter response than that, but so it went. "It's really not fair what happens when you knock a lithokinetic into a jewelry store!"  
  
Even before the words were out of her mouth, Tara was extending herself. Most of the stones on sale here were synthetics, and taking control of them was about as easy as working with refined metal. Even their tiny weights felt like moving mountains.  
  
But she could move mountains.  
  
Tara felt herself fall into the trance as her joints locked in position. Come on, she whispered or thought she did, it's fun to move. How long have you been resting like this? Remember when you flowed, down in the darkness? I can help you feel like that again. All you have to do is flow the way I want you to, and --  
  
The gems surged up. Some of them -- more natural gems -- shot away so quickly that they left their precious metal houses behind, while others dragged the fixtures with them as they flew through the air towards the golden-haired madwoman. Tara felt them thumping into her enemy. None of them moved terribly fast; she didn't want to leave a bullet-riddled mess on the floor. (Or at least, she didn't want to want to ... anyway.)  
  
The stones that didn't shatter on impact dropped a few inches, but she soon had them moving again, going back for seconds. Some of them glanced off the Mason woman, but she didn't even seem to notice.  
  
But then Tara felt one of them slam into a softer body, and dimly heard (through her real ears) someone grunt. The woman with the swords was going to take her next shot.  
  
Tara could only try to steer them away from her, while keeping up the bombardment. Hopefully, this would be the end of it.  
  
IV:  
  
_Will, are you in positionquestion_  
  
_I'm as close as I'm gonna get._ Opal's tallest towers were practically microscopic, so at this height he couldn't actually see the exact mark that Rick wanted him to hit.  
  
_Right. Home on my position, plus two meters y axis. When I give the word, go._  
  
_Gotcha._  
  
A few mouth movements later, his goggles were displaying the targeting computer with a big red X just in front of Rick's location. Will closed his eyes, concentrating on just breathing in and out. No matter how many times he did this, it still terrified him.  
  
V:  
  
The swarm of flying gemstones that engulfed the madwoman had already sent at least two flying back at her, but Rumiko ignored them as best she could while she slowly, silently approached her foe from behind.  
  
There were those who held that to attack a foe from the blindside was dishonorable. And indeed, Rumiko agreed with them -- when it came to duels. This was not a duel, it was a battle. She would take whatever advantage she could get.  
  
The gems pelted the madwoman, the one called Diane was lashing out at her with not-terribly-coordinated kicks and punches, and Rumiko raised up the katana that was her nomme de guerre and prepared to drive it through the golden-haired woman's midsection. Hopefully, that would be the end of it.  
  
But something went wrong.  
  
The woman's leg swept up to kick Diane in the chin, knocking her back, and even as the sword drove forward at her, she sidestepped its thrust and reached back to grab Rumiko's swordarm in a lock of iron. "Thanks," she said sweetly, and threw Rumiko up and to her left, though the air at the self-proclaimed lithokinetic. They slammed into each other, with Rumiko barely keeping her own swords from doing her ally serious injury.  
  
She looked up just as the enemy produced a blade nearly the length of her forearm from one of her sleeves, then threw it at Diane's midsection with enough force to go all the way through her and knock her down. In the same motion, she lifted her leg and stomped down on the blade's hilt, effectively stapling Diane to the floor.  
  
Unbelievable, Rumiko thought dizzily.  
  
"Now," the woman said in a little girl's voice, "you're all going to die! Won't that be fun?"  
  
And then there was the sound of glass shattering.  
  
VI:   
  
Ahead of him, the police line around the Bridwell Building. Behind him, a few police fliers in what they perceived as a high-speed chase through downtown Opal.  
  
Nothing at all like old times.  
  
Knight slipped his booted feet out of the bike's stirupps, and braced himself as best he could. At the last possible instant before he rammed into a police van, he slammed the throttle back to maximum choke. It bucked, of course, and sent him flying upward.  
  
*If* he was right about the limits of the police encirclement of the building; *if* he'd calculated the angles right; *if* the window on the eighth floor was only glass, instead of any of the glass-like composites favored these days; *if* the others there hadn't already been killed; *if* the Harlequin hadn't got bored and left. If all this was right, then he'd arrive in the right place at the right time. But he didn't think of any of that as he flew upward at the building. In the end, it all came down to faith.  
  
Knight folded his polykev-armored forearms in front of his helmet, and went through the glass like a bullet. The impact against the window had slowed him down enough that he could turn his upwards motion into a somersault that landed him on the floor, in one piece.  
  
"Harlequin!" he shouted, the acoustics of his voice changed by the helmet.  
  
And his oldest enemy turned to look at him with a bright smile and said, "'Bout time. I was starting to think something happened to you! Wouldn't want that, would I? Well, would I? Huh?"   
  
The most annoying thing about her, he'd realized, was the fact that she could keep right on with her spiel as she fought. Fortunately, he'd learned to tune it out.  
  
Mostly.  
  
VII:  
  
Okay. This *really* hurt.  
  
Diane tried to tell herself that she didn't give a rat's ass why it hurt more to have a knife poking all the way through her torso than one stuck in her head, but truthfully, she felt more than a little concerned. It might be that this really was it for her.  
  
Hopefully, that would be the end of it.  
  
Through pain-fogged eyes, she watched as the Harlequin -- that was her name, apparently -- turned her attention towards the guy who'd just come bursting through the window. As soon as that happened, she started to struggle against the paralyzing agony to bring up one of her hands so that she could make a start on pulling it out.  
  
She'd gotten one of her hands up onto her abdomen, where it was going to rest for a minute in the ooze underneath the knife's hilt. She was shying away from the thought of what that ooze might be when what else she was seeing finally penetrated.  
  
The guy in the black outfit and the yellow-masked helmet was fighting the Harlequin. And if he wasn't getting any further with her than any of them had done, she wasn't getting anywhere nearly as far with him. And there was something about the way that he moved ...  
  
It was a very old, very faint memory. Her daddy had still been with them, before he'd gone away for the last time, and she'd been sitting on his lap watching a movie in the home theatre. _Bat_, she thought. And the two Bats had been fighting each other right before the end, and daddy had said, in his voice that was like two rocks grinding against each other, "Yeah. That's how he moved, all right."  
  
Yeah. And now this guy was moving the same way. So was the Harlequin, though.  
  
Pity. Just once she'd like a myth to turn out to be more than a lie.  
  
VIII:  
  
Enough. Hopefully, it was enough. He'd slowly yielded up ground to the Harlequin, drawing her away from the others -- God on High Olympus, had she really stapled one of them to the floor? -- so that when he was ready, they'd be out of the blast radius.  
  
She was complaining about the poor quality of today's victims, sounding genuinely exasperated. That was the major difference between her and her suspected father. She *meant* it, rather than just being sarcastic or intimidating in a presentation of false emotion.  
  
It had to be far enough.  
  
"Now!" he called on his helmet's comm-link.  
  
IX:  
  
_Nowexclamation_ read the output on the goggles, and Will smiled.  
  
And in that second, became the thunder that shook Opal's towers in broad daylight.  
  
Author's Notes:  
  
Just a bit more to go in this issue; next release should finish it up.  
  
For those curious:  
  
Bat (2003) ** PG-13. D: John Woo. Ben Affleck, Eric Bama, Scarlett Johansson, Nick Nolte. Definitely the best of the many movies about the "Bat-man" urban legend, but that's not saying much. Fight choreography by Wo-Ping Yuen is probably the finest of his career and maybe of the history of film, particularly the climactic duel between the two "Bat-men" (Affleck, Bama). But the story is muddled and confusing, and if you emerge knowing which of the two of them was the real "Bat-man" and which the hallucination, you're a lot smarter than me. 140 min, DVD & VHS. 


	6. Book 1, Chapter 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 & 24

I:  
  
After receiving the gift of her swords, Rumiko had trained in the art and science of armed combat, but she had also studied jujutsu for a few months. That had been long enough for her to realize that she could excel in one of the areas, but not both. But it had also been long enough for her to witness some truly great masters at work.  
  
And the fight she was witnessing at the moment would have been beyond any of them.  
  
In a way, the black-garbed man and the one he called Harlequin reminded her more of the martial arts video programs of her childhood in the way that they fought, but faster -- as though the video was on fast-forward. She could see the strikes and the blocks, but each of them seemed to last only for an instant before the next engagement began. It was breath-taking.  
  
"Pretty scary, huh?" asked the blonde woman at whom Rumiko had been thrown, earlier.  
  
"Scary?"  
  
"That there's two people in the world who are that good at it." She gestured with an elbow.  
  
Rumiko considered this, and nodded shortly. "Yes. I think you are correct."  
  
"I'm Terra," the other said by way of introduction.  
  
"I am known as Katana," Rumiko responded.  
  
"Really." Terra appeared to consider this, and then shrugged. "I guess we're neither of us very original."  
  
Rumiko frowned and was about to ask what she meant by that.  
  
The air was abruptly torn asunder by a tremendous roar of thunder. Almost reflexively, Rumiko covered her eyes to shield them from the blinding lightning that was surely to follow.  
  
But there was none. And when she lifted her arm from her eyes, the Harlequin lay crumpled in front of a huge hole in the floor, with a matching one in the ceiling above it. The man had dropped to one knee and was examining his fallen opponent carefully.  
  
"But how?" Rumiko asked, even as Terra rose to her feet and made her own observation.  
  
"You've got to be kidding me."  
  
II:  
  
The speed of Mercury and the strength of Hercules were great, but in Will's opinion, the stamina of Atlas topped them all. He'd just rammed head-first through seven ceilings and six floors, but the only difficulty he'd experienced was a strong impulse to start coughing after he breathed in some concrete dust.  
  
Reorienting himself, he slowly ascended up the hole he'd made. Like always, Rick's plan had come out perfectly. He'd set things up so that Will wouldn't strike any key parts of the building's superstructure as he went down. They might still have some hassle explaining why it had been necessary, but the building's owners should be able to recoup the cost of repairs from their insurance; at least, if they'd been smart enough to avoid buying the sort that classed "metahuman activity" in the same category as "acts of God".  
  
As his head cleared the hole's opening on the eighth floor, he saw to his satisfaction that the Harlequin *had* been disabled according to plan. He looked up at Rick, who was examining the unconscious villain. "We good?" he asked.  
  
"You did well," Rick answered, sotto voce.  
  
With a grin on his face, Will soared up the rest of the way so that everyone on the floor could see him fully, particularly the bright white costume with the golden lightning bolt emblazoned on his chest. "And so, once again, the day is saved," he announced. "Thanks to ... CAP-tain Wonderrrr!"  
  
"You have *got* to be kidding me," replied one of the people on the floor.  
  
Tough crowd, thought Will.  
  
III:  
  
"You have *got* to be kidding me," Tara snapped, ignoring the weirdo in the white suit. "We fought her tooth and nail, and then you show up, call in an air strike, and take her out with a kick to her jaw? What the hell?"  
  
The weirdo in the black suit turned to look up at her. His face was hidden behind a golden visor, like on the helm of a medieval knight, and his eyes were further covered by a pair of lenses mounted inside the visor. In short, she was looking down at a pair of angry red dots. It was kind of unnerving, which was probably the intention.  
  
"The Harlequin manipulates probabilities," he answered. "As she's fond of saying, she can make million-to-one chances occur nine times out of ten. Blows against her, from an opponent of whom she's aware, won't do any sort of injury. The only way I've ever found to beat her is to distract her for a moment -- which is what the Captain's arrival did. I just knew how to beat her. You didn't."  
  
Tara blinked. The lunatic -- Harlequin? -- had said something like that just before the lifts ...  
  
Oh shit.  
  
"She made the lifts malfunction, didn't she?" The woman called Katana had come up behind her, and gave voice to the question now on Tara's mind.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Then why the hell aren't we *killing* her?" The words were out of Tara's mouth before she could hold them back.  
  
"Because we don't do that, Terra." The head in the helm shook from side to side, just once. "We just don't. Not even when --" He broke off suddenly as he turned to look at Diane's body, where it was stapled to the floor. There was a moment of shocked silence before he drew himself up and dashed around the hole to where she lay.  
  
"Heaven?" he asked, and the helmet's modulation couldn't hide the panic and confusion in his voice.   
  
IV:  
  
"Heaven?"  
  
This sure is my day for mistaken identities, Diane thought as she forced her eyes open in response to his voice. "No. Like I *said*. My name is *Diane*. Same *number* of syllables. But *different* ones."  
  
"Uh." There had been confidence in his voice earlier, but it wasn't there now.  
  
It was the wig. She'd finally figured it out. Why hadn't she insisted on a mousy brown color or something like that? As she finally jerked the blade out of her torso -- and shuddered as the holes in her body closed instantly -- she reached up and yanked the hairpiece off her head.  
  
"Uh," he repeated himself. "I'm ... sorry. I thought you were someone I knew."  
  
"Yeah. Her too."  
  
"Oh."  
  
The awkwardness of the moment increased expotentially as a team of jet-pack equipped SWAT troopers shot up the lift tubes behind them with weapons pointed out. "FREEZE!" shouted the pointman, who might as well have had the word "Lieutenant" branded above his beady little eyes.  
  
The black-suited guy looked right at them, and said, "Authorization Epsilon Vega Saturn Nine. Stand *down*."  
  
Impressively, everyone but the Lieutenant automatically lowered their guns. For his part, the Lieutenant's beady eyes got beadier, and he snarled. "What? What the hell do you think you're doing? You're no --"  
  
"I *suggest* you contact your superiors. Quickly." Diane had the strangest feeling that he was smiling behind his mask. It probably wasn't a very nice smile.  
  
The Lieutenant snarled some more, but then turned to speak into his headset. "What?" he all-but-shrieked a few moments later. "Why didn't anyone *tell* me ..."  
  
"What's that authorization you just used?" the white-suited guy -- Captain Wonder? -- asked as he drifted forward to join the two of them, his feet never touching the ground.  
  
"I just let him know that we're working this case on behalf of the city government."  
  
With a confused expression, Captain Wonder leaned in a little closer. "We are?"  
  
"Hush."  
  
"All right," the Lieutenant said at last, having thankfully missed the foregoing exchange. "So you're with the city, huh? Who the hell are you, then?"  
  
"I am Knight," he said standing up fully. "These are my colleagues, Captain Wonder, Terra and Katana." Diane didn't miss the startled looks those two gave him when he said that. Apparently, their status as "colleagues" was news to them.  
  
"And her? Who's she?" The Lieutenant didn't need to point. Of course, he *did* point.  
  
`Knight' looked down at Diane, who was just in the process of standing up. "She's --"  
  
"Leaving," she finished for him. "Where's the staircase? I'll show myself out. I think I've got enough change to call my P.O. ..." With that she turned and walked away towards the door with the sign marked "Staff Only" on it.  
  
Behind her, Knight spoke quickly. "Would you excuse me for a moment? Captain, answer all his questions, please."  
  
She could hear his footsteps coming up behind her, and she sped up in response. She'd made it halfway down the first flight of stairs before he came through the door behind her. "Wait a minute --" he called out.  
  
"Sorry, every second that I delay in reporting my association with known felons will probably mean a more severe note in my record. I really don't want severe notes in my record."  
  
"Will you at least tell me who you are?" He was still following her. How annoying.  
  
"You're with the city, look it up."  
  
"That's -- slow down, will you? -- a diplomatic fiction. Look, you helped out. I might be able to smooth things over for --"  
  
She whirled around. "Don't you *get* it? This is the first day I've been out! And already I'm in trouble! It was a longshot for me to even get paroled, and they're not going to forgive a little oversight like this! The place got wrecked!"  
  
"That wasn't your fault --" He started.  
  
"They. Won't. Care!"  
  
He stopped talking and just seemed to stare at her. Just as she was about to turn and walk away, he spoke up. "What were you in for?"  
  
The words came almost without effort. "Murder in the second degree."  
  
There was a long pause. "Of whom?"  
  
*That* didn't get asked a lot. And strangely, she found herself looking away as she answered. "My grandfather."  
  
"I see. Had he ... molested you?"  
  
Answering yes to that would have been the easy way out, even back at the trial. But he hadn't. She was relatively sure of that. "No. He was in the act of raping my mother, that's all." She still didn't look back at him.  
  
Another long pause, and then, "Was his last name Stagg, by any chance?"  
  
Now she did. A second later, she got control over her face again. "Right. So you read the papers. Big deal."  
  
"Actually, no. I just reached a conclusion based on your abilities and some ... tangential matters. You're Rex Mason's daughter, then?"  
  
Diane flinched. "Yeah. Do me a favor and don't tell me how sorry you were to hear about him."  
  
"I actually wasn't around back then. Quite literally. But ... listen." He reached up to lift the visor of his helmet up. He was, she supposed, quite handsome, but what got at her were his blue eyes. They seemed harder than sapphires, but there was sincerity in his expression too. "I think I can work something out so that you won't have to go back to jail."  
  
"Why?" It just slipped out. She didn't mean, why would you help me, or even why should I trust you. She didn't really know what she meant, really.  
  
He shrugged. "Call it a weird sense of aesthetics. Let me just make a phone call." He lifted one of his wrist-gadgets to his mouth, and began to fiddle with it.  
  
Diane felt a vague impulse to laugh when she realized what he was using. It wasn't very hard to suppress it, though.  
  
V:  
  
"I think I've made my point clear," Lorraine said, leaning back in the comfortable chair in front of the Mayor's desk.  
  
"Are you insane?" the Mayor barked, turning away from the videoscreen that was just beginning to report that the situation in the downtown district seemed to have been dealt with. "Sixty people just lost their lives!"  
  
"It could have been six hundred, or more. My associates have been tracking the person responsible for several months now. She is, with apologies to the late Mr. Stone, a natural born killer."  
  
"But the *property* damage --"  
  
Her eyes bored into his. "Buildings can be rebuilt, Mr. Mayor. And the loss of life, while tragic, is much less than it could have been ... and a skillful image manipulator can make sure that the public realizes that. And that would be very good for the career of the elected official responsible for bringing in the agency that dealt with this crisis, and will deal with future crises."  
  
His eyes dropped, and she could almost see the pretense of civic concern fall away to reveal the man's division between naked desire and fear of being caught. "Let me see if I understand this. If I give this team of yours carte blanche to operate in Opal, you'll underwrite its expenses. And ..."  
  
"And," she picked up, "the Cheyenne Group will make the maximum legal donations towards your future campaigns and the campaigns of your underlings. As well, when you leave office, we will give you the access code for a Swiss bank account containing five hundred million American dollars." Lorraine paused to let the amount sink in a second time, and asked quietly, "Have we a deal?"  
  
A buzz in her head let her know that Knight was signalling her for some reason. "Take a moment to think it over," she advised the sweaty politico. "I have a call to take."  
  
One mental switch later, a hologram appeared in front of her left eye. _Yesquestion_ she sent.  
  
_The situation has reached manageable levels, but there is a hitch_  
  
Her eyes narrowed. _What sort of pause hitchquestion_  
  
  
  
VI:  
  
"Let me see if I understand you correctly. There was an additional metahuman present at the scene of this engagement, one recently released from the penal system. You have apparently promised to use our influence to keep her from being returned to that system in exchange for her joining our group. Is my summary accurate?"  
  
The way that she she had managed to create a sound synthesizing system with enough sensitivity to produce a voice with such hinted menace was kind of amazing. "Yes, Lorraine, it's quite accurate."  
  
There was a pause. She was probably checking some sort of facts. He smiled calmly at Diane, but it didn't seem to make a dent in her perpetual frown.  
  
"And furthermore," Lorraine returned, "while you have been engaged in this project of rehabilitation, the local constabulary have taken the Harlequin into custody."  
  
"What?" he snapped. "But --"  
  
"We were supposed to do that. Yes. We were. The responsibility for what follows because we didn't is on your shoulders."  
  
And she could make it be much colder than a conventional synthesizer could ever be, as well.  
  
"Given that, are you still insistent on this extreme modification of our plans?"  
  
Rick closed his eyes, and let out a hiss of breath.  
  
"Well?"  
  
"Yes," he answered shortly. "In fact, her presence on the team is essential. It is a deal-breaker."  
  
"Is it."  
  
The next few seconds were the most frightening of his entire life to that point. He was good. With the rest of this group watching his back, he would be better. But he never, ever wanted to be on the enemies list of the woman on the other side of the line, and if he pushed this too far --  
  
"Very well. She can join. I've already set it up with the police -- instead exerting some effort to get the Harlequin transferred to our custody -- so that she can leave the scene unimpeded, and will next speak with the Parole Office. Satisfactory?"  
  
He didn't let out a sigh of relief. Not then, not in front of either of them. "Yes. Thank you, Lorraine."  
  
She signed off without reply.  
  
"Well, you heard her," Rick said to Diane. "Are you with us?"  
  
"What if I say I am," she asked, "and then just take the chance to get out of town as fast as possible?"  
  
"That would be very foolish," he answered. "And you don't seem to be that foolish."  
  
"All right." She closed her eyes, and sighed. "What do I do? Swear some sort of oath on the Crimson Avenger's cowl?"  
  
"No. We leave that sort of nonsense to the other bunch. All you have to do --" He opened one of the pouches on the same wrist as his communicator, and pulled out a business card. "Just be at this location at nine o'clock tomorrow morning. If you think you might be late, call the number and we'll arrange transportation."  
  
Diane looked down at the card, probably taking in the seaside address. Then she looked up at him. "Who are you, anyway?"  
  
"Like I said, I am Knight." Then, moved by an impulse he could never explain, he added. "But my name is Richard Wayne."  
  
*That* startled her. "Wayne? As in --"  
  
He nodded once. It wasn't really surprising that her father would have told his wife and children about it.  
  
"Then you're --"  
  
"His son. It's complicated." He cut off her questions by just waving a hand. "I'll explain it all tomorrow. To all of you."  
  
He had already headed up the stairs when she settled on a question she just had to ask. "And who are *we*, anyway?"  
  
Rick smiled at her before he clamped down the visor. "We're the Outsiders. Who else would we be?"   
  
THE END OF "The Beginning"  
  
TO BE CONTINUED  
  
Author's Note  
  
This is dedicated to Mike Barr and Alan Davis, for creating "Batman and the Outsiders", the comic book that ultimately inspired this series of fanfiction as much as Shane Jayell's "Project A-Ko: DC Universe 2045".  
  
Stick around. I've got a hell of a story to tell. 


	7. Book 2, Chapter 1 & 2

I:  
  
Rick thought it quite likely that he could have enlisted one of the complex's numerous support personnel to do the chore in which he was now engaged, but as his first sifu had told him: "If you would have a task done wrongly, let another do it for you."  
  
Besides, setting the file folders on the U-shaped table where the others would soon be sitting wasn't that much of a chore. And it kept his attention focused on the task at hand, rather than allowing him to concern himself with the anxiety he was beginning to feel.  
  
He'd never done anything like this before.  
  
He shook his head. Yes, he had done things like this before. Giving a briefing was a task he'd managed dozens of times, and it was a bit much to suggest that a person who dressed in a costume and fought crime in public suffered from stage fright. And he'd led a team on missions. He'd been highly decorated for doing so, actually.  
  
So what about this should be so conducive to anxiety.  
  
"Good morning," Lorraine said from behind him.  
  
He turned around to face her. "You're up early," he commented. In fact, he wasn't sure if she'd actually slept at all; he wasn't sure if she ever slept.  
  
"It's the big day, isn't it?" she asked rhetorically. Considering Rick for a moment, she added, "There's nothing to be anxious about. I'm sure that you'll do this as exceptionally as you do most other things."  
  
"Thank you --"  
  
"As long as you just do as you're told, rather than improvising."  
  
Rick chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment. "Yes. About that, I've been wondering --"  
  
"She escaped, of course," Lorraine answered. "Before the vehicle transporting her had gotten more than a few blocks from the crime scene. She killed all four of the officers accompanying her, of course. And her wherabouts are currently unknown."  
  
He closed his eyes, smothering curses. "We'll have to find her."  
  
"It seems rather likely that she will find us," she noted. "In any event, I was able to smooth things over with the police by explaining that we'd had every intention of taking her into custody ourselves, but were prevented due to the overzealousness of the lieutenant on the scene. Fortunately, he isn't around to contradict us on that point."  
  
"It's *not* fortunate," Rick interjected angrily.  
  
"Of course not," she answered smoothly. "But please do remember this episode the next time, all right? Now if you'll excuse me, the market will open in a few minutes, and I have work to do."  
  
He watched her go, silently promising himself (again) that he'd never allow himself to become that callous. After a moment, his temper soothed, he surveyed his works and nodded, then headed up to the front of the room. A few more runs through his prepared remarks wouldn't hurt.  
  
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" he began.  
  
II:  
  
"Or, who will watch the watchmen?" Rick Wayne (if that was indeed his real name) continued for the benefit of those who didn't speak Latin -- which was, oh, pretty much everyone.  
  
Diane Mason hadn't really had any idea of what to expect from her first day as a super-hero, but this vaguely classroom-like environment would never have been on her imagined list of things.  
  
"When Juvenal wrote that in his Satires, two millenia past, he was talking about the possibility that an official police force would be prone to corruption. I think, though, that the phrase has larger meanings that he didn't consider."  
  
Rumiko was looking at him evenly, clearly taking in what he said. So was Will Freeman, the guy who'd shown up in the nick of time yesterday. Diane had the feeling that he'd heard it all before, though. Tara was looking at the others as he spoke, even as Diane was doing. Their eyes met, and Tara looked away first.  
  
"Consider: watching a watchman can also mean looking after his -- or her   
  
-- blind spot, so that an attack can't come from an unanticipated direction. No matter who you are, you always need someone that you can trust to watch your back. This, I think, more than the other, is why superhumans -- on both sides of the ethical divide -- have tended to operate in groups from the very beginning." He paused for a moment. "There's a reason why the teaming of Batman and Superman has always been called the World's Finest."  
  
News to me, thought Diane. From what she'd heard, those two could barely stand each other.  
  
"That, more than the other reason, is why I think we need to pool our resources." He stepped to the side, unblocking their view of the big screen that filled the wall behind him. The lights darkened slightly, and news images began to play across the screen.  
  
The forming of the new Justice League. The alien invasion in Metropolis and subsequent computer take-over of the LexCorp building that had been their first mission, complete with journalistic speculation that Lena Luthor had staged the entire affair to draw them out. Other examples of supervillainous activity, all across the country -- some dealt with by conventional forces, some -- most -- not. Examples from across the world. Someone called Dr. Tzin-Tzin giving the Chinese government twenty-four hours to submit to him or be wiped from the face of the Earth. New horrors in the remains of Qurac. The Loch Ness monster sighted, photographed, and filmed attacking its photographer. Strange lights over Mars.  
  
The film ended, and Rick stepped back into place. "This is our world. These are our times. Everything you just saw happened in the last twenty-four hours."  
  
Diane blinked, turning to look at the others. To her surprise, she saw that Tara had leaned back in her seat, putting her feet up on the table. The other met her gaze again, this time lifting an eyebrow. Diane turned away.  
  
"I'm not going to bother repeating the same platitudes about the value of cooperation that everyone here was fed as children. They are true, as Will and I demonstrated that yesterday. Come to that, so did the three of you, before we arrirved. If we want to do more than just survive in this world -- if we want to make a difference -- then we need to have someone watching our backs.  
  
"And I do want to make a difference in this world before I leave it."  
  
He paused, and Diane wondered if he was waiting for someone else to ring in with an agreement. For herself, she didn't really give a damn about changing the world. The world was crap.  
  
But nobody went through the joint without learning something about needing someone else to watch your back.  
  
Regardless of what he'd been waiting for, Rick continued after a few moments. "Circumstances have thrown us together. What I propose is that we acknowledge that serendipity, and use it as a base to continue working together."  
  
"Of course, there's a bit of a problem there, Rick," Will abruptly interjected. "I trust you, of course -- but there are some of those present that I feel a little bit worried about." His eyes swayed involuntarily towards Diane.  
  
Diane was unsurprised. This guy, whoever he was, clearly did his homework. And his attitude wasn't a shock either. Who'd want to trust a convicted felon to do anything but continue in her felony.  
  
And he was probably right about her, too.  
  
"You're not wrong, Will. We *all* need to learn that we can trust each other. In the interest of promoting that trust, I'm going to tell you my story, first. My name, as I told you when you arrived, is Richard Wayne. My father was the billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne. I think you've probably heard of him.  
  
"What I don't think you've heard is that he is Batman."  
  
Diane *had* heard, of course, but she was surprised to see that, based on his reaction, Rick's old pal Will clearly hadn't.  
  
"Seriously?" asked Tara.  
  
"Always," Rick answered unsmilingly.  
  
"Wow. So ... who's your mom? Catwoman? Poison Ivy?"  
  
"Not even close. My mother was an intelligence officer in the United States Air Force named Diana Prince.  
  
"You might know *her* better as Wonder Woman." 


	8. Book 2, Chapter 3 & 4

I:  
  
Will let out a silent whistle as he considered just how much Rick was giving away. None of it was news to him, of course, but it had been like pulling teeth to get some of it out of the guy, way back when. He decided to put it down to just how much he wanted these three to trust him.  
  
"Wait a minute," Tara interjected. "Wonder Woman never had a secret identity, and she never worked for the U.S. government. I read her autobiography, and there's nothing about any of this in there. And don't hand me any lines about not telling the whole story, because she was the goddess of truth for a while!"  
  
"Ah. Yes. Well." Rick's little frown was a clear indication (to Will, at least) that he was heading into some uncomfortable territory. "The situation is somewhat ... complicated." He was silent for a few moments, and Will guessed that he was searching for the right way to tell the next part. Apparently, he settled on the blunt truth. "I'm not from this Earth."  
  
"I don't get it," said Tara. "If you're from another planet, then how can --"  
  
"Maybe I should have said, this *dimension*. There are ... well, not an infinity, but a very large number of realities parallel to this one, floating in a medium called hypertime. Most of them contain an Earth, its sun, and so on and so forth. But aside from such similarities on a large scale, they can all be very different from one another."  
  
"How different?" Rumiko asked quietly. "Excuse me, I meant how different was your world from this one?"  
  
He smiled for the first time since he'd greeted them all. "Different in too many ways to quickly enumerate, Nagai-san."  
  
"I am Rumiko, please."  
  
He nodded, then continued. "I suppose the most relevant difference was that, on this Earth, superhumans started appearing in the late 1930s, whereas on my homeworld they didn't become active until the mid-1950s. But those who arrived then were the generation of heroes who manifested in this world's late 1980s -- Superman, for example."  
  
"I've never heard of this `hypertime' stuff," Tara said, and Will could hear the skepticism in her tone.  
  
Rick sighed. "Neither had anyone back home until some of my friends -- and our enemies -- became involved in a situation that ... well, to make a very long story short, it ended up with me stranded here."  
  
"Trapped in a world you never made?" Diane commented sourly.  
  
"Yes, but who isn't?" he replied with a weird little smile in her direction. Her perpetual scowl deepened in respons.  
  
Will didn't get why Rick was handling the very frightening woman on the other side of the table with such kid gloves. She'd beaten her grandfather to death with her bare hands, over *nothing*, for pity's sake. If Rick thought she was some sort of counterpart to that girl he'd left behind, Heaven whatsername, he was seriously messed up.  
  
"You didn't come alone, though," Rumiko stated abruptly. "The woman we all fought yesterday -- the Harlequin -- is also from your world, originally. Isn't she?"  
  
He nodded again. "Very clever, Rumiko."  
  
She shrugged dismissively. "It was just reasonable. She was clearly familiar with you, from her ... comments as the two of you fought. If you are from another reality, then the rest must follow."  
  
"Lemme guess, she's the daughter of the Joker and Circe the Sorceress?" Will flinched at Tara's wisecrack.  
  
"The best guess is that she *is* the Joker's daughter." Rick's tone was mild, but he was frowning all the same. "She's made statements that pretty clearly indicate that. Her mother's identity is something of an enigma. When I get back home, I'll have to add Circe's name to our list of possible suspects. Thank you for your suggestion."  
  
"Uh. Right." She shifted in her chair, plainly uncomfortable, and turned to look at Will. "Are you from this ... other world, too?"  
  
"Nope," Will answered quickly. "Strictly a local boy. In a very broad sense, of course. I basically ran into the boss here --" He nodded in Rick's direction. "-- a few years ago. He talked me into this whole gig. Before that, I had no intention of every putting on a costume. Well ... not to fight crime, anyway."  
  
"Amazing. Somehow you're giving us too much information and not enough at the same time."  
  
He coughed at Diane's comments. "To make another long story short, my folks were both in the game, too. My dad's Captain Marvel Junior, and my mom ... we all called her Mary Marvel, but to the public she was better known as the `other' Captain Marvel."  
  
"Wait ... isn't Captain Marvel Jr. her brother?" Tara asked, edging away from him.  
  
Will rolled his ees, but answered patiently. "No, she's the sister of the male Captain Marvel."  
  
Tara continued to lean back. "So she married her nephew, then? I mean, if he's Captain Marvel Junior, then --"  
  
"No," he answered, feeling his teeth clench involuntarily. "My dad isn't related to Bi-- the original Captain Marvel. At all."  
  
"So why is he Junior, then?"  
  
"Because he's a junior captain," he explained calmly, then scowled at her. "How the flaming moonbeams should I know? It's not like I've got the old wizard who gave them all their powers on speed dial!"  
  
"All right," Rick said, holding up a hand. "That's enough. It's important that we all learn to trust each other, but possibly I'm asking some of you to move just a little too quickly for our respective comfort zones."  
  
Thank God, thought Will. He'd wanted to join a super team, not a therapy group.  
  
II:  
  
Rumiko cleared her throat. "Actually, Mr. Wayne, I believe that I'm quite ready to discuss my situation." She noted, but did not comment upon, the way Mr. Freeman's face fell at her words.  
  
"In that case, please go ahead. And call me Rick, please."  
  
She nodded, and began to tell her tale. It was less dramatic that Rick's to be sure, but she hoped that it would explain why she had chosen this path rather than another. At first, all she had wanted was to become worth of the two swords she had been bequeathed. But even before she reached the level of skill that the uninitiated deemed "mastery -- and which she now knew was only a degree that measured excellence, with others following that she had not begun to reach -- she had realized that it was not enough.  
  
Yamashiro Tatsu had also begun her studies as only a hobby, but she had eventually decided to wield her sword in the name of vengeance against those who'd murdered her family, and ultimately in the name of justice as well. And she had not only bequeathed her swords to Rumiko, but also the mask she had worn.  
  
So Rumiko had set out to find a cause that merited her skills. She had travelled across much of the western United States, and there had been the occasional encounter with those who saw fit to ignore both the law and the rights of others. (She saw Rick nod as she spoke of this, and was not surprised to learn that he had known of her activities.) Yet it had not been until yesterday that she had found what she truly sought.  
  
Foes more than equal to her skills. Allies upon whom she could rely. A chance to truly test herself, and to be of help to a world in need of it. "And how appropriate that I should find such things in a group named for the one with which my cousin also found them," she concluded.  
  
Rumiko had seen Tara's clear desire to inquire about certain details of her story, and had avoided the interruptions that irritated Will by continuing to speak even as the other woman opened her mouth. This had left no time for the other's comments. Now, however, when she asked if there were any questions, Tara simply glowered at her.  
  
On the other hand, Will had opened her mouth, but appeared to be struggling to find the words he wished to speak. She gently prodded him with the word, "Yes?"  
  
"Um, I was wondering about ... well, about your, um, your ..." He trailed off, clearly embarrassed, and settled for rubbing his cheek.  
  
"My scar?" Rumiko confirmed, pointing at her own cheek.  
  
He nodded, still flushing.  
  
"I acquired it through carelessness. I had only recently progressed to the stage where one uses a true blade in practice, rather than a wooden bokken. Due to my inexperience, the student who was practicing with me accidentally cut into my cheek. I elected not to have the mark surgically removed, so that it would continue to remind me what carelessness can cost."  
  
"That was an accident?" Diane asked, sounding skeptical.  
  
"Of course," Rumiko answered. "The other student apologized very sincerely afterwards, and I forgave him, and that was that."  
  
"And I suppose he also stopped practicing at your school, too?"  
  
She found this line of questions very odd. "As a matter of fact, he did. He was probably as ashamed of his role in the accident as I was of mine."  
  
"Right," Diane said, rolling her eyes.  
  
What a confusing person, thought Rumiko.  
  
"Well. I really do think that's enough for now," Rick announced. "Let's move on to a tour of the complex and it's --"  
  
His suggestion was interrupted by a loud horn blaring.  
  
"Or not," he murmured, and turned to look at the screen as a white-haired woman's face appeared there. "Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Lorraine Cheyenne, the head of the Cheyenne Financial Group, who donated the complex to our team. Lorraine, I take it that a crisis sitatuion is developing?"  
  
"Yes, Knight, I'm afraid so. A gigantic, crablike robotic vehicle has just emerged from the bay. Its pilot is threatening to wreck the harbor area unless he is paid one hundred million dollars."  
  
"Well, he's starting for less than Tzin-Tzin eventually accepted from the Chinese," Rick replied. "Do we know this particular pilot?"  
  
A faint, rather cruel smile crested on her lips. "I think that Captain Wonder in particular is quite well acquainted with him."  
  
The screen suddenly split, with Lorraine's face on the left. On the right, there was a still image of a bald, portly man with thick glasses and a large, beak-like nose, holding a fist above his head and caught in mid-rant.  
  
Will groaned at the sight. "Aw no. Not him. I've been good all month, and this is what happens?"  
  
"So who the hell is he?" asked Tara.  
  
"This is my arch-enemy -- fortunate, lucky me -- and his name is Dr. Thaddeus Bodog Sivana the Third ..." he trailed of, then concluded in an even more gloomy voice, "OB-GYN." 


	9. Book 2, Chapter 5, 6, 7 & 8

I:  
  
Roughly two hours later, the crab-legged mecha lay collapsed onto the pavement of the port of Opal City, slightly obstructing traffic but no longer a threat. Knight, looking slightly drenched, was staring up at its bulk with a sour expression when he overheard a disturbance some distance away.  
  
"Curse you, Captain Thunder! I curse you and your kind!"  
  
"It's Captain Wonder, Tad. Just like it was the last three times."  
  
"STOP CALLING ME TAD!"  
  
"Well, I'm not going to call you Sivana, for pity's sake. I think your grand-dad would start rolling in his grave if I did that ..."  
  
"Shut up! JUST SHUT UP!"  
  
Will shrugged, and turned to fly towards Knight's position as the mad gynecologist was forced into the police hovercar's back seat. "Y'know, I never have quite gotten why he doesn't just blow my secret identity," he said to Rick as he settled to the ground. "We knew each other growing up, so I know that he knows ..."  
  
"A secret isn't a secret if you tell anyone else," Rick commented, turning to look up at the robotic vehicle.  
  
"Good job figuring out how to shut this thing down."  
  
Rick sighed. "Well, it really came down to what you'd already told me about The World's Worst Wicked Scientist's actual abilities with mechanisms."  
  
"He's an okay mechanic, but he doesn't have the resources or talent to build something like this," agreed Will.  
  
"So he must have salvaged it, and given that it's clearly aquatic in nature, it almost had to be Atlantean in origin. It's just a good thing that the language is the same in both my world and yours," Rick muttered, continuing, in his thoughts, /given that almost nothing else is./  
  
"I'm a little surprised that you let Katana yell the override commands at it, instead of doing it yourself," he confessed.  
  
Rick turned back to look at the other members of the team, resting some distance away across the water. "Job one of the leader of a team is keeping everyone involved. Dad never quite got that, unfortunately ... Fly me over to them? I think I need to have some words with Ms. Mason."  
  
II:  
  
Diane looked up briefly, to see Knight and the Captain descending towards them, then looked back down again before they landed, watching the water drip off her nose.  
  
"First of all," he said without preamble, "I want all of you to know that I think we all did a good job in stopping this thing before it could do any major damage. Katana, I'm particularly impressed that you were able to recover quickly from realizing that your attempted hamstringing' of the robot wasn't going to work."  
  
"I have never seen such swift self-repair. The technology involved is quite remarkable," she replied.   
  
Typical, thought Diane, give her sort a compliment and they completely ignore it. Twit.  
  
"That said," Rick continued, and Diane clenched her jaw as she waited for what she knew was coming. "I have a big problem with your actions, Terra."  
  
Diane had already opened her mouth to justify what she'd done, when the fact that he'd addressed someone else   
  
"Me?" Tara almost-squeaked. "What'd I do? I kept pelting the damn thing with as much as I could while --"  
  
"That's not the problem. I have a problem with your decision to let Diane attack that thing on her own, while you hung back and watched."  
  
She stared at him, clearly bewildered by this. "I didn't know that her thing wasn't, y'know, going to work!"  
  
"Neither did she," Rick acknowledged. "That's why I'm not giving her a lecture about jumping the gun. As far as either of you knew, diving towards the mecha and transmuting a cylinder of its internal workings to hydrogen gas as she fell through it was going to work great.   
  
"But when it became clear that it wasn't working, and that Element Woman --" Diane flinched at the name. "-- had fallen all the way through the mecha and into the water, you just hung around up here and continued to try brute force techniques. You didn't even check to see if she was all right. And given that she can't swim, that could have been fatal."  
  
"I didn't know that she couldn't swim, either!" Tara protested.  
  
"Did you ask?" Rick fired right back. "Did you consider that if she succeeded, she'd end up in the water, and maybe you should find out if your partner would be all right in that event? Did taking any safety precautions occur to you?"  
  
"Why aren't you taking her to task for any of this crap?" Diane felt a disturbing impulse to chime in with a "Yeah!" to accompany Tara's demand.  
  
"Because I'm pretty sure that she's already thought most of it for herself," he answered smoothly.  
  
Where did he get off assuming anything about her thoughts! And why the hell did he have to be right?  
  
"Anyway, and this goes for all of you: if I send you out in partners, I expect you to look out for one another. Captain, you and Katana did well on that, this time. You two --" This to Tara and Diane. "-- need some work. I'll be scheduling teamworking classes, starting tomorrow."  
  
"Aren't you going to say anything to me about what I did?" Diane heard herself ask.  
  
He turned and looked at her for a moment. "Would anything I had to say to you make a difference?"  
  
She thought about that, when she wasn't sneezing, all the way back to their base.  
  
III:   
  
"Well, that was an embarrassing interlude," Lorraine noted as she examined the mechanical schematic hovering in front of her.  
  
"Things are going to be rough, our first few times out. I warned you about that when we discussed this."   
  
Richard wasn't making excuses, she knew, or engaging in told-you-soing. He was simply stating the facts as he saw them, which was one of the reasons she'd decided to entrust both their fates to him. "And I suppose that I should have expected that remarkably few of our opponents will be criminal geniuses, as opposed to geniuses gone annoyingly awry," she agreed.  
  
She turned to look at the video display that filled her suite's wall with his face. "Speaking of which ..."  
  
He closed his eyes and sighed heavily. "She's popped up already?"  
  
"It happened well before even I had projected, but yes. The Harlequin executed the armed robbery of a major Network cafe while the owners were celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of its opening. No one was hurt, but she escaped with a few thousand dollars, and -- this part is strange -- a single board from each of the cafe's terminals. Do you --"  
  
"Start monitoring for virus-like programs," Knight interrupted. "Her first move will probably target key pieces of the city's infrastructure. Expect one of her big guns to be named after one of the chemical compounds of Joker venom; if you don't already have the formula, you can probably find it somewhere in the old GothamPD-dot-net server. After the cyber-attack, she'll choose a primary target; not something directly related to city function, but one that'll have been hit collaterally by the damage already done. A bank, probably one of those within walking distance of city hall. I'm not yet familiar enough with Opal's layout to guess which one."   
  
"Been through this before, I take it?" Lorraine asked after he seemed to have run down.  
  
"Yes," he said without further amplification. "What about the mecha, Lorraine? I'm pretty sure Aquaman will want it back."  
  
"King Arthur," she replied emphatically, "can ask for the device if he wants it returned. In the meanwhile, we're going to be examining it."  
  
"Lorraine," he said, frowning. "Atlantean technology isn't that far advanced over what's available contemporarily. What are you planning on doing with it?"  
  
She smiled widely. "All kinds of neat stuff," she answered, and cut the connection.  
  
IV:  
  
Who did he think he was, anyway?  
  
Obviously, he thought he was the boss of her. And, really, he was kinda right about that.  
  
But still, who was he to treat her that way?  
  
Better question: who was she to object?  
  
Tara squeezed the pillow more tightly around her ears, wishing strongly that it would keep out the voices in her head, as she lay face down on her cot's mattress.  
  
The thing of it was, she knew that Knight was right about what he'd told her about teamwork. And she'd been good at it, once upon a time, except for the whole planning-to-betray-and-murder-them-all thing. If that had been her, at least.  
  
Agh.  
  
Tara finally let go of the pillow, rolled over onto her back, and looked around at the room designated as her "quarters". Hah. Try "eighths". It was a pretty spartan room, though Knight had assured her that she was welcome to bring in anything she liked to improve the decor. Of course, since she didn't have anything ...  
  
The right thing to do, she finally decided, was to go to Knight and tell him that she realized that he was right, admit that she had a long way to go, and say that she looked forward to the teamworking classes. Even if she actually felt like the classes would be like dentistry without anesthesia.  
  
But, suiting her actions to her intents, she slid off the bed and walked toward the room's door. It opened with a press to a pad beside it, sliding up into the ceiling instantly and silently. Very efficient design, she noted as she stepped halfway out the door.  
  
And then stepped all but a sixteenth of the way back, peering out to look at Rick and Will, standing outside the latter's quarters and talking quietly. She noted with amusement that even outside of his Captain Wonder identity, Will still had a more muscular physique than Rick. Neither of them seemed to have noticed her, so she decided to take the opportunity to eavesdrop.  
  
"I honestly don't know," Rick was saying. "I think we've got a good mix of talents and attitudes here, but ..."  
  
"But what?" Will asked after a moment. "You're the guy who's done this before, man."  
  
He shook his head, a seemingly weary gesture, "I've built a team out of people who were already part of a larger organization, and wanted to be a team, regardless of whatever difficulties they might have with one another. I honestly don't know how he did it with a bunch of people who'd never worked together before, and weren't really joiners to begin with."  
  
Who was he, Tara wondered, and then suddenly guessed.  
  
"Well, he did," Will replied, gently parodying the near-reverential tone with which Rick had spoken the pronoun. "And I believe you can do it too. Just gotta give it some elbow grease, like Nuncle Dudley used to say."  
  
"Yeah," Rick agreed quietly. "I guess. Thanks, Will. It's good to know that someone believes." He was quiet for a long moment, and then spoke again. "Um, so, anyway ..."  
  
Will shook his head in great amusement. "You old romantic, you," he said as he leaned forward to kiss Rick on the lips.  
  
Gosh, thought Tara, numbly. Suddenly, things made so much more sense. She watched as Will drew Rick into his room, and the door slid shut.  
  
"I guess he's going to be a little too busy to accept my apology," she said aloud.  
  
"Yes," came a tense voice from her side.   
  
She quickly turned to see that Diane was also leaning out from her own quarters, and that the other woman's face was pinched with something like anger and confusion. "Something the matter?" she asked.  
  
"No," Diane replied, as terse as before, and still looking hard at the closed door of Will's room.  
  
"Oh, I get it," Tara said, her smile widening as she thought of a truly amusing joke. "Feeling a little lonely yourself, huh? Well ... my door is open."  
  
Diane's gaze snapped in Tara's direction. "If you ever suggest anything like that, ever again, I will turn your blood to acid and watch you die." She whirled around to stomp back into her room, and the door (presumably) slid shut.  
  
Nonplussed, Tara kept looking at where Diane had been standing for a moment, before shaking her head and walking back into her own quarters. "Gotta teach that girl to take a joke better than that," she muttered as her door closed.  
  
And then there was silence.  
  
THE END OF "Who Watches"  
  
To Be Continued  
  
Author's Notes  
  
Sorry for taking so long on this, and sorry again for cutting out the action sequence -- but I'm really not very good at writing them.  
  
Next up will be a chapter featuring guest appearances by a number of the new Justice League, as depicted in "Project A-Ko: DC Universe 2045", by shanejayell.  
  
See you then. 


End file.
